The Singles Game by Weisberger Lauren

Author:Weisberger,Lauren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

13

tennis royalty

DANIEL ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA

APRIL 2016

“Aaaargh!” Charlie screamed as her racket connected with the rising ball right at the sweet spot. It sailed back, barely clearing the net, before landing so close to the baseline that Charlie wasn’t sure it was in. She rarely grunted—she thought it a gross and unladylike strategy some of the women used to distract their opponents—but this time it had been a purely biological response to hitting the ball with every ounce of her strength. The shrieking grunt had escaped her lips involuntarily. She was horrified but had to admit it felt good.

“Thirty–love,” the female line judge announced into her microphone from her raised courtside chair.

“Challenge!” Karina bellowed, pointing a sizable hand toward the line. “That was out!”

“Ms. Geiger has challenged the call. We will review the point,” the umpire declared.

Charlie’s heart pounded from the exertion and excitement. They’d been playing for two and a half hours already, and she was two points away from winning the entire tournament in Charleston. She took deep inhales through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, walking slowly to keep her legs loose. When she glanced toward the player box she saw her father, Jake, Dan, and Todd all turned away from her, their attention directed at the mammoth overhead screens, waiting for the replay to begin.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the camera focused on Charlie’s shot: it sailed over the net, making a near-perfect arch on its path to the baseline. There, just before it landed, the camera zoomed in so only the ball and a few inches of the baseline tape were visible. In the slowest of slo-mo, the ball inched its way toward the line and tap! A tiny sliver of the ball’s underside grazed the very back of the tape. A shadow-like graphic of the slo-mo camera confirmed it: there had been one centimeter—perhaps less—of overlap between the ball and the baseline. But that’s all she needed. She pumped her fist at the same time the crowd cheered. Todd sprang to his feet and raised both arms over his head and screamed, “Yeah, Charlie! Now, finish this!”

“The score shall remain thirty–love,” the umpire announced calmly. “Karina Geiger is out of player challenges.”

Karina slammed her racket against her leg hard enough to hurt and shouted, “Mach es dir selber!”

Trying to stay calm, Charlie walked to the line and motioned to the ball girl, who immediately ran over and proffered two balls. Charlie tucked the first one in the leg of her black undershorts. The second one she bounced rhythmically one, two, three times and then tossed in the air. The late afternoon Charleston sun was blinding, but she’d practiced in enough bright sunshine to stay focused on the ball. She watched it rise toward the sky, and then at the perfect moment, just as the ball was reaching the peak of its ascent, Charlie launched both feet off the ground, extended her right arm from behind her back to over her head, and went after it with the strength of her entire body.

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